Blaze in Manchester apartment block brought under control

Police close the road after fire breaks out at an apartment block in Manchester, Britain December 30, 2017 in this image obtained from social media. TWITTER/@MANCTRAFFIC/via REUTERS.

LONDON (Reuters) - Firefighters battled a blaze in an apartment block in central Manchester, northern England, on Saturday, with one person taken to hospital suffering from smoke inhalation.

The Manchester fire service said 12 engines had been dispatched after flames engulfed several apartments on the ninth floor of the 12-storey building.

“The fire had spread to multiple floors but we have things well under control here,” the service later said.

Britain is still reeling from a fire that ripped through the Grenfell Tower social housing block in west London that killed 71 people on June 14.

That fire was Britain’s deadliest since World War Two, gutting the 24-storey building that housed a multi-ethnic community living in a poor area within one of London’s richest boroughs, Kensington and Chelsea.